J. D. DeBlieux

Who was J. D. DeBlieux?

Joseph Davis DeBlieux, known as J.D. DeBlieux, was a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate who represented East Baton Rouge Parish from 1956 to 1960 and again from 1964 to 1976. DeBlieux is remembered as a crusader for civil rights in Louisiana politics during the latter years of the era of segregation. During the New Orleans school desegregation crisis of 1959-1960, DeBlieux chaired the Louisiana State Advisory Committee to the newly established United States Civil Rights Commission. He argued for "equal rights for all", not for racial integration per se, as the American South slowly complied with the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education.